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Volume 55, Issue 53 | Monday, April 12, 2021 | ndsmcobserver.com
Examining Zahm’s ‘troubling culture’ Plans to alter COVID tests, thousands of dollars of property damage, a disputed partying reputation By ADRIANA PEREZ and ISABELLA VOLMERT Editor-in-Chief and Assistant Managing Editor
Editor’s note: This story includes strong language, as well as mentions of sexual assault. A list of sexual assault reporting options and on-campus resources can be found on the Notre Dame, Saint Mary’s and Holy Cross websites. The email was stark and unsparing. A junior resident of Zahm House, a dorm that University officials effectively decided to close last month, was responding to an apparent challenge to a drinking game from a first-year resident. “I’ll teach you how to f*cking finish after I’m standing over your puking body as you cry about how you don’t belong in this dorm,” the junior’s email read. “... I’m about to make you my little b*tch after 10 margs. I’m about to give you months of content for your therapist after you need to resolve these daddy issues … I’ll f*ck you until you love me you f*cking m*ricon.” When the University announced plans to essentially dissolve Zahm, officials explained the decision by offering vague references to concerns regarding the dorm’s “troubling culture” — including vandalism over the years, demonstrated disrespect for University officials and a disregard for University COVID-19 testing protocols. However, after more than a dozen interviews conducted by The Observer over the past month, a clearer picture of the life and culture inside Zahm House has emerged: At one point during the fall semester, the dorm had more than twice as many COVID cases as any other residence hall and several students hatched a plan to alter their COVID test results by cleaning their nostrils out with rubbing alcohol in an attempt to be able attend a football game. The cost of vandalism damages in and beyond Zahm has been nearly 10 times higher than the average of other dorms in the last few years. And a series of mass emails distributed among Zahm residents in recent years portrays a culture of partying and drinking, and includes coarse and deeply misogynistic references to women, such as
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ISABELLA VOLMERT | The Observer
A banner reading “Save Zahm” was hung from two of the dorm’s rooms shortly after the decision to close the hall was announced mid-March. Zahm residents created a petition calling to overturn the decision.
On Sept. 10, 2020, vice president for student affairs Erin Hoffmann Harding sent an email to Zahm residents saying the dorm had twice the amount of coronavirus infections than any other residence halls on campus. Zahm rector Fr. Bill Dailey said Zahm residents have often attributed the rates of COVID-19 cases within the residence hall to what he described as a tight-knit community: “They have a very tight sense of knowing one another and [they] make that a priority.” Fr. Dailey previously served as rector in Stanford Hall from 2013 to 2016. In 2016, he was asked to found the Notre Dame-Newman Centre for Faith and Reason at St. John Henry Newman’s University Church in Dublin, Ireland. Last year, he asked to return to campus ahead of schedule and to lead a residence hall, he told The Observer in an email. And so he was assigned as the Zahm rector beginning in the fall of 2020 — according to associate vice president for residential life Heather Rakoczy Russell, he is the seventh the dorm has had in nine years. “I very much appreciate the way the men here support each other, but I do not agree with them that their friendships are qualitatively different from those in other dorms such that they were entitled to indulge in behaviors they knew to be
wrong,” Dailey added in the email. “... That’s one example that points to underlying culture.” Junior and resident assistant Joe Day also said the high rate of infection was probably a result of the tight community the Zahm residents have. Per the Sept. 10 announcement, Zahm residents eligible for testing — those in quarantine and who had tested positive were exempt — were given instructions to report for a surveillance test by the end of the day Sept. 11, a Friday. If a student did not get tested, they would not be able to attend the Sept. 12 game between the Irish football team and the Duke Blue Devils, the email said. Students who did not complete testing could also be referred to the University’s conduct process. Though many Zahm House members were planning to comply and report for surveillance testing, some had planned to alter their test results, according to Rakoczy Russell. “When called for surveillance testing, some Zahm residents planned together to modify the test through a hall-wide student GroupMe, which became known when a concerned Zahm resident passed along a warning to the testing center,” she told The Observer. Some residents, Rakoczy Russell said, actually tried to follow through with these plans, but the testing center staff had been made aware of possible issues. “When Zahm men appeared for surveillance testing, deliberate disregard was most apparent when
some of them tried to alter results by cleaning their nostrils with rubbing alcohol just prior to the test and actually failing to swab their nostrils,” she added. “Their behavior required nurses at the testing center to adjust testing procedures to ensure the accuracy of the tests.” “I highly doubt that there was a coordinated effort to change the type of the results of the test,” Junior Zahm resident Daniel Castaneda told The Observer. Day said the incident didn’t involve any more than two or three residents.
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jokes about gang rape and sexual assault.
Twice as many COVID-19 cases, required testing and plans to alter results
Thousands of dollars in annual vandalism costs, within and beyond Zahm Residence halls typically average
$500 in vandalism-associated repairs during academic years, with occasional outliers reaching around $1,000, Rakoczy Russell said. In the fall 2020 semester alone, vandalism-associated repairs in Zahm cost $4,785, she said, which “was consistent with prior patterns.” For instance, during the 20182019 academic year, costs related to vandalism reached $6,785, she said. And by the end of the 20192020 academic year, Zahm House’s property damage due to vandalism-associated repairs totaled $14,738. An example of routine vandalism, according to Rakoczy Russell, was destroyed or “paneled” doors — a “near-weekly occurrence” in the hall. Dailey said this year has seen an “endless parade” of ceiling tiles, door panels, window screens and other items damaged in the dorm, with no one to take responsibility for any of it. When the responsible students cannot be identified, they cannot be made to pay for the repairs as restitution, so the cost of these is charged to the hall account, Rakoczy Russell said. Day explained the residence dorm rooms have wooden doors with eight wooden panels in them, and residents will commonly punch out panels in someone else’s door if they “have beef with somebody” or as a joke. Castaneda said Zahm residents see ZAHM PAGE 3
Courtesy of Fr. Bill Dailey
The doors in Zahm have eight square panels that are often kicked out by residents, a practice that induces routine vandalism expenses.
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